


They Should Have Been Blue

by Pipra_Paprika



Category: Life and Death - Stephenie Meyer, Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: All Human, And this is a cute love story but she doesn't know it yet!, C&E are just perfect together though, Carine struggles with her sexuality, Esme is narrator, F/F, I should NOT be starting another fan fiction! What the hell am I doing?, No Carlisle here, REALLY human..., Sorry Not Sorry, deep breaths..., mentions of rape and suicide, okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-04 00:44:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20462249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pipra_Paprika/pseuds/Pipra_Paprika
Summary: In glittering LA, the elite like a good party.Good parties are parties planned and executed by the renowned, widowed and Empowered (or at least she says she is) Esme Platt.Dr Carine Cullen (and doesn’t she have other things she ought to be doing, like, I don’t know…seeing patients?) has no right, NO right to storm in and change everything, even if she isn’t who Esme thinks she is and the conclusion to a long and extremely public feud doesn’t end like she thinks it will.





	1. Battle Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Gah! 
> 
> I'm starting another fic!
> 
> FINISHTHEOTHERSGODDAMMIT!
> 
> But hey, inspiration for this struck like lightning and there isn't enough Carine/Esme out there so, don't worry, folks! I'm here to right that wrong!
> 
> I really hope you like this!

‘I live in beautiful world’, says the magnet on my fridge.

And I do. My world is pristine. 

Not a speck of dust to be found on any marble floor.

But, sometimes, the world _isn’t_ so beautiful.

I remember scrubbing my own blood off those floors in the days of Charles.

Charles was my husband, a good man, respected man, wealthy man. A man my parents were _extremely_ happy to accept when I brought him home to meet them.

Astoundingly, they still seemed to like him when I showed up at my grandmother’s funeral with a black eye and a ring of bruises around my ankles, arms and wrists.

_I guess you fell,_ they said when I tried to explain. _You ought to keep his home tidier._

I did.

I cleaned up all the blood and threw out anything that looked as if it had been broken by violence before the cleaners came.

Charles himself, though handsome, was not a good guy.

I’d known that even before I married him but, arrogantly, Esme Platt, voted ‘nicest girl’ in high school, was _so _nice that she was willing to put up with that. She was going to help him.

I guess I failed.

After the worst of our fights, the cops found him dead, face down in a pile of cocaine (on an unconscious stripper’s ass, but I only found that out later. Thank God for the Beverly Hills gossip system).

In the hospital, the cops asked me what I knew of his criminal dealings, but, between the bruises all over my body and the baby he’d just beaten out of me, I think they decided to let it go.

They must have thought that punishment enough for a dirty gold-digger.

But I wasn’t. Charles had taken from me more than I could have ever hoped to gain from him and to be honest, during our five long years of marriage, I think I lost my mind.

Without Charles’ web of despair to hold me in the air, I began to free-fall.

For the first time, I was _safe._

However, who could I celebrate with? I was alone because my poor little baby, _our_ poor little baby, hadn’t even had the opportunity to be born.

I had never felt pain like it when I saw them wrap him kindly in the blanket and take him away. 

I screamed like I was being gutted alive and woke up from the frenzy in a psych ward (standard procedure, you understand) being peered at by an angel.

The angel made something stir within me, something deep and primal and I refused to eat, drink or sleep until someone made her _fucking_ go away.

Eventually, dejectedly, she did.

Then, I left. 

Through the wreckage the FBI had left of my home, I put my house back together. 

After that, I put my life back together.

I threw out or sold all Charles’ crap.

I got my teeth whitened.

I bought myself a shiny car.

I get my nails done every week.

I live in a beautiful world.

I have purpose, and do only good (I was voted ‘nicest girl’ in high school, if I didn’t already mention that).

My life is fulfilling and healthy.

I’m involved with charities, I run fundraisers, I have parties, and I volunteer at the hospital that almost saved my child’s life.

Speaking of! 

One of the biggest events of the year around here (after I got ahold of it) is the Hospital Gala and, after I inherited the responsibility of planning it, I was _determined_ that it would be a party to remember.

Plus, event planning seems to suit me.

I’m in charge. I am in _control._ Everything that happens is what I anticipate will happen, and approve of happening.

Even the people on the planning committee I set up were to be expected.

…Jess Stanley…the ridiculously hyperactive Alice Whitlock…Rose, of course…

Oh! Actually…there _was_ one small oddity…

I learned, to my…_ineffable_ joy, that the woman I’d screamed at (which occasionally embarrasses me) was a top clinical psychologist and very much in the community’s consciousness.

And, for some reason, she…_she…_decided to grace our presence.

At the first meeting, she sat at the back of the room quietly, accepting the adoring smiles of the other women with a modest nod, saying nothing.

Judging everything.

Doing my best to ignore her, while they tittered in agreement, I told the committee how the Gala was going to work out. Every detail, down to the colour of the streamers on the walls, decided. 

By _me._

(I settled on gold, by the way. But _classy_ gold.)

Which is where the world fell apart anew.

“What about blue streamers?” the blonde woman suddenly suggested in that mild, unbearably reasonable manner of hers.

…_Blue_ streamers?

Yes, blue streamers.

And, at that moment, in the meeting room of _my_ charity committee, battle lines were irreversibly drawn.


	2. Running in heels

Can I tell you who Dr Cullen is?

Once, I had a dream that I was on the toilet. Then, the stall walls turned to glass and I found myself in the middle of the city with hundreds of people gawping as I took my shit.

Dr Cullen is the one person in the world that makes me feel the same way.

Like she can see straight through to my vulnerability. Like my walls are glass.

She doesn’t even have to speak, just knowing she's in the room makes me seize up with anxiety.

I mean, seriously?

I would’ve thought I’d be used to shrinks by now.

Another fun fact about Dr Cullen: everyone loves her.

I don’t know what it is about being an attractive doctor, but the world flocks around you.

And, yes, she is attractive.

I’ve bitched to many a friend over light lunches about how the Cate Blanchett look is better left to the lady herself and that styling your naturally blonde hair like Marylyn Monroe seems a little desperate, (if not a little annoyingly classy).

Classy or not, Dr Cullen talks to everyone, and everyone talks to her.

It’s like the world of social intricacies don’t even matter to her.

She probably thinks she’s Jesus.

And I _do_ have better things to think about, by the way, like all my charity work, but unfortunately the exploits of _somebody_ are taking up much needed room in my brain.

And then I remember that I’m not really, an airhead socialite and my life is horrible.

Carine has a purpose. And, seriously, it’s good that she pays little notice to social snobbery or she'd never give me the time of day (like I'd even _want_ it).

But then, I know she knows.

She saw me in the hospital. She watched the worst moments of my life unfold, saw the parts of me that another person should never see.

So now I guess now she’s trying to _help_ me.

True to form, the next instalment of the Dr Cullen show came at the end of the next committee meeting, as if she can’t leave well enough alone.

I was trying to wrestle with the door on my way out with my box full of folders when I heard footsteps running towards me.

And, I thought, who runs in heels, anyway?

Oh, of _course._

“Here, let me,” said the voice that made my stomach clench.

I turned around with teeth gritted into that disney smile that doesn’t seem to work on her.

“Thank you, Dr Cullen! That’s _sooo_ sweet of you!”

Instead of just getting the door for me, like a normal person, she literally _sweeps_ the folders out of my arms and then holds the door open and I just walk through it, not knowing if I feel like an ass or some weird version of royalty.

“Carine, please,” she says.

“Carine,” I smile back politely.

(Of course I knew her name, like everybody, just never used it. Now I’ll have no choice. Or I won’t use it and see if she gets the hint. Decisions, decisions...)

Now at my car, so-called _Carine_ hasn’t left, nor shows any indication of giving me back my belongings.

Oh, wait, she parked right next to me, as if _that_ isn’t weird...

“Esme, I’m sorry about the streamer thing, the other day,” she said after she’d finally returned my things.

“Everyone in the committee is welcome to give an opinion,” I reminded her, which they are, naturally, because I’m not some psychopath.

“Gold looks really nice,” she said, probably trying to be nice, as if I deserve to be _pitied._

“I know, that’s why I picked it,” I said, which sounds shitty, but I was tired and simply could not deal with that smile of hers any more today.

“Well, see you around,” she said, as if I wouldn’t be avoiding that.

As she got in her car, I decided to stand and _watch_ because if there isn’t anything worse than getting out of a tight parking space with an audience.

But the world couldn’t be that kind to me.

“Bitch,” I muttered under my breath as she rather artfully backed out of her space and the Mercedes drove away.

After that, I got into my own, and dare I say _shinier_ car, but this gave me no sense of power…or even of equality to the doctor and I’ll admit that all I did when I got home was cry.


	3. Uh...Overstepping, Much?

“What about chin length?” my friend Rosalie wondered, miming a pair of scissors with her fingers and holding her hair between them.

“No,” I said immediately, seeing ruin for my beautiful friend as the face of…_Carine Cullen _momentarily attached itself to her head.

Then Rose smirked at me.

“You still have that grudge against Dr Cullen, then?” she wondered, stirring her coffee.

“Yes. And it’s not a grudge,” I explained. “I just can’t stand her.”

“All she did was question the streamer choice,” Rosalie said with a tone that she must have thought reasonable.

“Yeah, well _I’m_ in charge,” I reminded her. “It’s a lot of work to get blue streamers! I checked! And I already have the gold but of course as soon as _Carine,_ that’s her name by the way, says _blue,_ everyone wants blue, because she’s a _psychologist_ and always knows best.”

“Blue is…calming, I guess…?” Rose tried.

“Not for me!” I told her, which is true, the amount of damn stress this has all caused.

Sensing some kind of artistic disturbance in the force, both Rose and I looked up before Edward made it through the door looking attractively and effortlessly windswept as he often liked to.

“Look who decided to show up,” Rose muttered, rolling her eyes. “Finally…”

“Sorry I’m late!” Edward said, seating himself with a flurry of purpose. “Rehearsal ran over!”

“You could have always stayed later, Edward,” I told him. “I know how much the production means to you.”

He looked affronted.

“And miss Wednesday coffee with my girls?” he spluttered. “Sister, I need _boyfriend_ advice right now!”

Rosalie rolled her barbie eyes magnificently (and I say that as a compliment).

“You take being the gay best friend, way too seriously, Edward,” she said and the man himself stood back up and took a deep bow.

“I own no prouder title.”

Placing himself down carefully, Edward smirked.

“So, you and Jacob are a _thing_ now?” I asked.

I hadn’t heard that they were.

“Uh, no!” Edward complained, throwing his hands up. “That’s the issue!”

He sighed.

“Maybe I need to see a psychic again…” he mused.

“Maybe you should go too, Esme,” Rose smirked. “See how best to deal with Dr Evil-Queen-who-seems-perfectly-benign-to-me.”

“Carine drama _still?” _Edward asked excitedly, then giving the passing waiter an appraising up-and-down glance.

“You are unbelievable,” Rosalie sighed, having also noticed this.

“No more than normal,” I told Edward, looking pointedly at my coffee so neither of my friends saw how much I was triggered by her very name.

“Hey, all great ladies need a nemesis,” Edward continued, stealing a crumb of cake from Rose’s plate. “What you need to remember is that you need to slap that girl down, bitch.”

“I…think Esme kinda already did,” Rose said apologetically, while I felt a small snarl of shame in my belly and she received a handful of gel after she smacked Edward playfully on the head. “To be honest she seems like quite a nice woman.”

“Not you too!” I laughed, feeling pretty horrified at my friend’s deceit.

How did she not _see_ that Carine was out to get me?

Before I could make a comment to that effect, Rose’s phone buzzed on the table.

Reading the message, Rose gave a grunt of frustration and mashed her phone into her perfect forehead.

“What’s up?” I asked, worried.

“That was Emmett,” she told me with a sigh, already packing the phone into her handbag and getting up to put on her jacket.

Rose leaving a half-empty coffee on the table was never a good sign.

“Seems that Leah finally snapped and apparently she smacked that kid, y’know Sam or whasisface?”

“‘Bout time she taught that little bully a lesson,” Edward nodded approvingly. “That’s my girl.”

“The school called Emmett in for a meeting and he needs the moral support,” Rose finished with a huff, flicking her hair out from under her collar.

“Or a calming influence,” I said, feeling sympathetic.

Emmett and elementary school disciplinary meetings did not mix.

Well, that’s a lie. Thanks to McCarthy junior’s zero-tolerance-for-bullshit policy, they mixed rather a lot. It’s never pretty, is what I meant.

Rosalie gave a bark of dark laughter as a stood and gave her a comforting hug.

“Tell me how it goes?” I whispered and she nodded.

“Give ‘em hell!” Edward added.

“Will do. Oh and Esme?” Rose said quickly, fishing for her car keys. “The women’s rights group is meeting early tomorrow, did you get the email?”

“Yes, I’ll see you there,” I told her, before watching her dash out to the car.

Poor Rose. At least she didn’t have to bake the-

_“Shit!”_ I muttered as I remembered my promise. “I told Sue Clearwater I would bake!” 

_“She_ does not need any more cookies,” Edward said, dragging Rose’s unfinished food towards himself.

“Ouch,” I muttered as a tried to remember what Sue was actually allergic to versus what she _pretended_ to be allergic to (honestly, some people!)

“Need any help?” Edward wondered, though pulling his ‘these hands do not bake’ face.

I shook my head.

“I’ll do it after the hospital Gala meeting,” I said, then groaned remembering that, on top of everything else, today was a _Carine_ day.

“Good luck, soldier,” Edward grinned, like normal reading my damn mind.

_Fucking right I’ll need luck,_ I thought a little later as the gold glint of annoyingly neat hair caught my eye at the start of the Gala meeting.

The gold glint said nothing today, and I thought it might have learnt its lesson.

However, no joy.

When the meeting ended, the gold glint began growing steadily larger in my peripheral.

_Fucking _perfect! Here we go again…

“Esme! Hi!” Carine said and I managed to surprise my sigh only with God-like will.

“Dr Cullen!” I replied, fists clenching only fractionally. “You were very…er…_quiet_ today.”

“Oh, Carine, please,” she corrected me quickly, as if she somehow thought that I hadn’t remembered our previous conversation. “And I really had nothing to add! I thought you covered everything. I don’t know how you come up with all those ideas!”

“It’s your job, though, right?” I reminded her. “To know how people’s brains work?”

She laughed a little and, as her eyes scrunched, I couldn’t help noticing that she was wearing a little mascara today, which I had never seen before. 

She didn’t need it, which was the kicker.

“The brain is so complex, I couldn’t ever possibly hope to understand all of it,” she said loftily.

“Wow, that’s really interesting,” I said, losing patience, and suddenly reaching the point when my feet decide I’ve been standing in my toe-pinching heels for too long. You know how it goes…

“Well…anyhow,” she continued wearing that ridiculous learned face of hers, oblivious to the fact that I had forty gluten and egg-free muffins to bake and could really do with getting going.

She fished in her bag for something and produced a little yellow notecard which she proceeded to hand to me.

Like, what the fuck is this?

“I just wanted to give you my number. My…er…personal number,” she said hopefully. “Just in case you ever…wanted to discuss anything…or just…”

She shrugged lamely.

I’m sorry? _Discuss_ anything?

My stomach sank like lead. She wanted to talk about…that. _That_ day.

Then, the lead boiled.

“I am _not_ your _patient!”_ I hissed at the woman, as venomously as I could, before shoving the damn thing in my pocket, seizing my laptop and stalking away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Carine! Awww!
> 
> Don't worry, this is eventually a happy story because my heart weeps for Carine's effort!
> 
> I aim for this to end up being around 10,000 words long, but I know the chapters are quite short. Stick with it anyhow.
> 
> Also, would anyone be up for 'Gold is Good Too' - Carine's point of view?
> 
> Potentially more angsty but very much more...not very straight?


	4. The difference between 'heroine' and 'heroin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay HUGE trigger warning for the entirety of this bizarrely long chapter including opioid addiction, quite vivid description of attempted suicide and one veiled rape reference.
> 
> So go easy everyone.
> 
> Plus there are some very awkward phone calls.
> 
> Also, I hope I've written this in an acceptable way, because I've never found myself witness to this situation and have literally no idea what I'm talking about, so please nobody be offended.
> 
> Phew!
> 
> Last thing - a couple of sparks start to fly in this chapter and please know that however horrible Esme's past, the future is going to be a lot brighter...
> 
> Happy reading!

“Fucking Carine!” I muttered as I pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

See? She has me talking to myself now like a crazy person!

“Fucking stupid little fucking eyelashes!” I added as I continued to drive. “…Discuss things…_Huh! _Honey, you can discuss things with my _lawyer_ when I…_HOLY SHIT!”_

I didn’t even cringe at the sound my cool brakes made as slammed them on and swerved suddenly to the side of the road, leaping out of the car to join the small group of gawkers forming on the sidewalk.

The woman they were all staring up at was sitting on the ledge of one of the nearest building’s fifth-storey windows. She looked young, scared, but wholly intent upon shuffling her ass the few inches forward she would need to fall onto the street below.

“Someone call 911!” a male voice implored.

“I already did!” a woman answered him hysterically. “They’re not here!”

It turns out I _must _have half a brain after all, since at this point I already had my own phone in my hand and was fumbling for the little yellow notecard in my pocket.

Yes, I’m stubborn, but not stubborn enough to let my own Gala Committee drama actually_ kill _someone, so, though it felt like sandpaper on the way down, I temporarily swallowed my pride.

My choice of emergency contact picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Carine?” I shouted into the phone, watching the street lights flickering on the young woman’s pinched face above me and feeling sick to my stomach. “Carine are you there?”

“Yes, Esme,” I heard and nearly wept with relief - too relieved to be surprised that she knew it was me so quickly. “What’s the prob-”

“I know I’ve just been very rude to you, and you probably hate me right now,” I told her as quickly as I could. “But there’s a girl trying to jump off the building at the end of the block.”

I think I might have been speaking _Panic_ rather than _English,_ but somehow Dr Cullen seemed to get the point since on the other side of the line I heard a car door slam.

“S-she’s threatening to jump! A-and I don’t know what to _say_ and I…Carine, please, like…what do I _do?”_

“Keep her there for as long as you can!” Carine told me, and then I think I nodded my head to the empty air like a bewitched but really dumb Marionette puppet. “Make sure nobody else gets hurt. Keep everyone _away._ Give her space. I’m on my way!”

“Okay…” I whispered down the phone as it went dead.

“Where are the cops?” cried another person, who was looking wholly overexcited with the whole hideous situation.

“Someone’s on their way,” I said more firmly than I should but I could sense this bitch’s hand itching towards her camera phone, which pissed me off more than I could articulate. “But for now, let’s just step back a little so nobody else gets hurt if she does…fall, yeah? _Thank_ you.”

Yes, thank you, fucking _ghoul._

I shuffled the people backwards (apparently I’m good at shuffling groups of people to places) but one of the guys pushed _proactively_ past me and went to climb up to where the woman was.

_Jesus…_

However, he hadn’t got too far before Carine’s Mercedes screeched to a halt behind my own car.

“Where?” she asked simply as she leapt out.

Before I could even point, Carine had spotted the emergency and was already scaling the fire escape, pushing past the guy who was good-naturedly calling up well-meant, but sadly unhelpful, things to the ghost teetering above us.

And, wow, by the way she is _speedy _because it didn’t seem to take her long to get to the railings at the level of the young woman’s window ledge.

…Actually, Carine _wasn't_ stopping at the railings, rather squeezing herself onto one of the adjacent ledges.

My vision crackled with darkness for a moment and my head swam noting only one of her deeply intellectual hands grasping the side of the window.

All it took was a gust of wind and she’d…

“Carine _don’t!”_ I shouted, panicked, as she shuffled closer to the woman with her ‘free’ hand outstretched.

I may have issues with the woman, but despite what I may have drunkenly sworn to Rose a couple of times, I didn’t want her to_ actually_ die.

Carine flat-out ignored me.

She is _nuts,_ I tell you.

_“Carine! What the hell are you doing?”_ I roared, furious with the insane danger she was putting herself in and with the creeping realisation that if the doctor _did_ fall, it would crucially be _my_ fault.

My heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear my own heels on the asphalt when I stumbled forward, hands over my mouth, as Carine reached her precarious target and knelt down beside her on a ledge thin enough to make a pigeon balk.

To this day, I have _no_ idea what Carine said to that girl but just about when my nerves couldn't take it any longer, she was wrapping her coat around the other woman and leading her back slowly, _slowly,_ and with the utmost care towards the fire escape, like a mother with a scared toddler in tow.

As the two reached the steps and started the slow descent, the onlookers started to cheer.

However, a glimpse of Carine’s face warned me not to join in.

_Ohhhhh_ dear.

As she reached the bottom, Dr Cullen lost her cool, something that I had always hoped I’d get to see, though, in the current situation, it gave me no sense of satisfaction.

“We don’t need that, _thanks!”_ she shouted. “Use your brains!”

“Oh my God, you’re a hero!” said hero-man cheerily, as if he didn’t have an ounce of social sense, whipping out his phone to take a picture.

Dr Cullen shoved the guy, and pretty hard at that.

“Sir, thank you for your concern,” she said as the woman beside her began to sob hysterically. “But _fuck off._ Immediately, please.”

The man looked shocked, and so was_ I_ for that matter. 

After experiencing first-hand her typically, and _infuriatingly,_ impeccable manners, hearing Carine swear at someone was like going to Disneyland and having Queen Elsa call you a evil cunt (which, in fact, I’m pretty sure almost happened to me once. Long story…)

She stormed past him, managing to simultaneously support, steer and hide the face of the woman wrapped under her arm.

“Carine! Dr Cullen, thank you!” I said genuinely, running up to her, assuming for some reason that I was exempt from having to ‘fuck off’.

However, Dr Cullen, who was _very_ much Dr Cullen at this point, didn’t seem to appreciate my goodwill.

“Go home, Esme,” she said without looking at me, pleasantly, but flatly enough for me to know that I was merely an annoyance to her, and was distinctively _not helping._

Weirdly, that little lapse in her total attention, her _almost_-harsh tone, winded me and chilled me to the core and instead of feeling relief during the shaky drive the rest of the way home, I felt a little like _I_ should jump off a window ledge instead. 

The feeling merely intensified as I arrived at my spotless, empty house. I was shivering and neglected to even look at my baking preparations, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be in any state to see other human beings the next day anyway.

Kicking off my shoes, which were really killing me at that point, I took some deep breaths. Before I could start to cry, which I could feel was threatening, the phone rang and, assuming it was Rose, (who was about the only person that I could bear to speak to) I took the call without checking the caller ID. 

That was a _mistake,_ by the way.

“Rose! Hi! I-”

“Esme-Ann?” said the tinny voice I thought I was clear of, at least for a while.

My stomach dropped.

“Mom?”

“I’m s’prised ya picked up,” she continued, which is probably true.

I tend not to.

“I didn’t really mean to, if that helps,” I informed her. “What do you want?”

“I’d like to invite ya ‘d visit ya father before he _dies,” _she said in that horrible toe-curling way of hers. “T‘be nice for ya to make a li’l bit of an effort to reconcile with the man who raised ya.”

Oh Jesus, _seriously?_

“Well…it’s not actually only _Dad_ I have the issue with,” I reminded her. “So…”

I shrugged aggressively to my empty living room.

“So _what?” _she pretty much hissed at me. “Ya just waitin’ for me ‘d go too? Maybe I’ll do it tonight. Wha’d’ya think? Nice neat shot ‘d the temple in the kitchen ya grew up in.”

My torso cramped thinking of that scared little face all the way up high and I started shaking a little more. It was the adrenaline, I think.

I was certainly _not_ fucking crying.

“Mom, don’t say things like that,” I told her.

There was a horrible silence.

“Esme-Ann, are ya fucking _crying?”_

There was a more horrible silence.

“Better than crying _fucking,_ which is worse, by the way,” I told her thickly, though I was _not fucking crying._ “And if it makes any difference, the most growing up I did in that kitchen was pouring you two booze before I caught the bus to Elementary school!”

“Well a lot’a other kids had it a lot hard’r’n _you,_ ya know,” she had the nerve to say to me. “Ya lucky we ‘llowed ya to go ‘d that fucking school!”

I let out a peal of laughter that probably sounded crazy.

“Mom…it’s the _law…” _I reminder her.

What…the fuck?

“You _know_ how things were f’r us…” she shot back, and, yeah, she didn’t know the _half_ of what I knew.

“Look, I can’t get into this now,” I told her.

“We…we miss ya honey,” Mom lied in return, and in a pretty half-assed way at that.

“Did dad say he missed me?” I asked pleasantly.

Silence.

“Didn’t think so,” I muttered, just savouring the part of the conversation where my mother stopped talking and just breathed down the phone.

Real loudly, too.

“The money is coming through, alright?” I told her, which was the real reason for the call. “But I’m paying the rental people directly because apparently you can’t handle cash because it always ends up in your fucking arm.”

“N’ya listen d’ me!” Mom shouted and, habitually, I cringed. “If ya’d stayed in _Ohio, _and not been s’ fuckin’ _selfish,_ ya father wouldn’t’d had d’ work s’ hard, he wouldn’t’d gotten in the _accident _and he wouldn’t’d been given the _oxycon’in,_ and then-”

“I moved because _Charles_ wanted to move, okay?” I exploded. “And when I asked to move back in with you, you said_ no._ And when he started to beat the _shit out of me,_ you said _no_ and-”

“Don’t ya _ever_ criticise me!” Mom shrieked. “Ya d’n’t know how hard it is ‘d raise a child!”

“I’m just-”

“And ya _never_ will!”

The phone went dead, and, as it did, I _seriously_ started fucking crying.

As the night crept in in ernest, I felt so cold, and alone. Like I was stranded on the moon.

It was a familiar but nightmarish feeling, like being trapped under snow or thrashing desperately around in a lake so deep I couldn’t tell which way to swim to eventually break the surface.

My body stung, and I couldn’t sleep, so sometime in the early morning, when the phone on my nightstand vibrated, it was with the grogginess of despair rather than sleep that I reached for it.

“Mom, kindly fuck off…” I whispered hollowly into the phone but, to my surprise, I actually got a nervous chuckle down the line.

It wasn’t my mother’s.

“Sorry to wake you, um, Esme,” the voice said softly.

“Oh God, Carine, sorry,” I said, sitting up quickly with my chest stinging a little less all of a sudden. “You calling to make sure I haven’t gone insane after that?”

Hey, I probably had.

“I was calling to apologise for snapping at you,” she responded primly, but…kinda sweetly, I guess.

“At two in the morning?” I laughed, checking the time.

“I suppose,” she said haltingly. “And…to thank you for thinking to call me, although I…know you don’t really like me very much.”

“Well, no, I don’t necessarily _dislike _you,” I said tactfully, not really able to tell whether that was a lie or not. “And besides you’re mighty useful.”

“Then I’ll be useful for you,” she said, but it didn’t sound snide like it would coming from me.

“How is she?” I asked apprehensively, knowing she’d know full well who I meant.

“I can’t share that,” Dr Cullen said, being Dr Cullen.

Come_ on…_

“Oh come _on!” _I huffed, because something like that is suspense I can’t deal with.

“But…for your peace of mind, there have been no calamities, as yet,” Carine said carefully, taking pity on me, I guess.

“You were _amazing,” _I breathed at last, because she honestly was.

“Just…doing my job, I suppose,” she said.

She almost sounded shy.

“Well I feel like you went very literally above and beyond the call of duty,” I said, as warmly as I could.

“That’s kind of you to say,” she continued and I felt my mouth quirk up at the sides hearing the genuine sheepishness in her voice. “But-”

Yeah.

_But._

_“But_ just one thing, Carine…” I interrupted sternly. “Don’t you _ever_ fucking climb up the side of a building again, you nearly gave me a heart attack! Sorry for swearing.”

“Heart attacks I can help with too,” she added helpfully and, weirdly, I felt like there was about a sixty-percent chance she was trying to make fun of herself.

“Smart-ass,” I grinned. “Anyway, I hope you get a pay rise, at least.”

“It doesn’t quite work like that,” she laughed.

“Fucking bureaucracy…” I growled playfully, confident that Carine was one of those people who could pick up on nuances down the phone. “You know America has gone to the _dogs…”_

“Are we about to have a political debate at two-oh-seven in the morning?” Carine chuckled.

“Well…” I said, tutting. “…It’s actually two-oh-_six_ by my clock so…”

“One of us must be wrong,” Carine said playfully.

“Indeed,” I said, which is a word I don’t recall ever using. “Or…wait! It just changed! We’re all good.”

“In the same time zone again…”

We both laughed for a little bit, I think to relieve the awkwardness of the situation, because I think the last time I spoke to a psychologist at two in the morning I was not in a good place. I had a weird feeling she knew that too.

_“Are_ you alright, though?” she asked me at last.

“Yeah…just tough day, I suppose,” I said with a deep sigh, playing with my duvet cover.

“In that case I’d better let you get some sleep,” Carine replied.

Amending my statement, I actually felt as if I’d be okay, only as long as she stayed on the line.

“Wait, will you be coming to the meeting next week?” I asked, not to _stall_ her, exactly but for…y’know, numbers…

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she assured me.

“Awesome, so…see you there,” I said, feeling suddenly very awkward and…shit I was _blushing._

Blushing alone, in the _dark,_ because I was suddenly shy of _Blondie._

_Trippy._

“If…I don’t see you before,” I stumbled, feeling like an ass.

Why was I feeling like an ass?

“Well, see you when I see you,” Carine said breezily,_ not_ sounding like an ass, but rather ultra put-together, as per usual. “Bye, Esme.”

“Goodnight,” I said, putting my phone down gently on the nightstand.

Then _she _made a faux pas.

“Sweet dreams,” she answered softly before the call cut out, obviously having forgotten who she was speaking to.

Seriously Carine?

I started chucking into my pillow. Must be left-over adrenaline or something.

Weirdly, as if on command I did fall asleep. And my dreams, unusually, were pretty…okay.

Wow…she _is_ good…


	5. A...'Mechanic'? Sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while, guys.
> 
> Y'know...stuff...
> 
> But I'm back, and totally committed to getting this story (and the sequel) finished and posted for y'all.
> 
> Hopefully my twaddle can boost morale.
> 
> Stay well! Stay sane!
> 
> (And thank you for your comments! It's like shouting at the universe and the universe shouting back - it's lovely!)

“That…is _Jacob?”_ spluttered Rose across our usual table, jabbing a nicely-manicured nail at the screen of Edward’s phone. _“That?”_

“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Edward said with a sparkle in his eye. “Native American, I mean, _hello.”_

I did see what Rose meant, though.

“He’s…he seems rather…” 

I couldn’t think of what to say.

“Not your normal type?” I tried as Rose curtly said ‘straight.’

Edward pouted and Rose snatched his phone out of his hand.

“Are there more? Can I flip forwards?” she asked, fiddling with his screen. “Or will I get one of your dick pics or…whoa!”

“Whoa,” I agreed. 

Jacob did have quite big muscles and…

“He takes care of himself, you’ve gotta give him that,” Rose muttered dryly as I giggled at the suggestiveness of the picture Jacob had sent Edward.

“Okay, I take it back,” I chuckled. “He _is_ gay.”

“What human holds a wrench like _that?”_ Rose snorted.

“A bit of a fistful,” I laughed.

“And _oils_ his _chest_?”

“He’s a mechanic, I told you!” Edward said indignantly.

“A mechanic?” Rose said slowly. “Wow. So you _are_ shooting porn together.”

Immediately, she looked up and, as he went past, grabbed the arm of the waiter.

“Mike, c’mere a second,” she said, thrusting the phone in his face. “Does this guy look gay?”

“I guess…in a kind of porn star kind of way,” he said mildly, but with a small smirk that made me think he’d overheard our conversation.

“Thank you, Mike!” Rose smirked. “See, this is why I always tip him!”

“Edward, he looks sweet,” I said, taking pity on poor Eddie, who was really just after our approval. “I’d love to meet him sometime.”

“How did you even _find_ this guy?” Rose continued. “You have not been to a garage in you _life.”_

“My cousin,” Edward answered simply.

Of course. Alice.

This would be Alice, the _nosiest_ woman in the universe. A girl who married a heavily-scarred, PTSD-ridden, military veteran pretty much straight out of college and together now they run…

…Wait for it…

…A _matchmaking_ business.

Yeah.

Pairing up single, rich people in LA.

So, you can see why I’m nervous of Alice.

“How does Alice know him?” I wondered.

Edward shrugged, and then leant forwards excitedly, folding his phone with his precious soft-porn photo library lovingly into his blazer.

“Anyway…enough of me…” he said heavily, swinging his eyes towards _me._

Uh oh.

“So…_I_ heard _you_ were setting up the Dr Cullen fan club, Esme.”

_Uh oh._

“I’m sure there already is one,” Rose said, nudging Ed. “Are _you_ going to join it?”

“I’ll join it it means she’ll tell me what hairdresser she uses,” he shot back with a raise of a sassy eyebrow.

“But yeah,” Rose said. “What _did_ go down that night?”

How would I even explain?

“Carine climbed up the side of the building…you know round the block from the hospital? With the-”

“Yeah I know the one,” Rose said, frowning. “She climbed up there? What the fuck?”

“And she saved a girl’s life,” Edward cut in before I had a chance to speak.

“Oh, so you already knew exactly what happened and you just wanted to steal the punchline from me,” I said. “That is_ so_ typical.”

Honestly, he _always_ does this.

“Anyone we know?” Rose continued idly (yeah, she can be a bit of a hard bastard at times).

“No, but her name’s Bella Swan,” Edward gushed. “And she has a young daughter and I’m _pretty_ sure she’s a prostitute.”

“How do you always know all of this?” I spluttered. “It blows my mind! _I_ didn’t know that and I was _there!”_

Yeah, Edward is the nosiest _man_ in the universe.

“Well, you, Esme, should be milking Dr Cullen for more details,” he smirked. “Especially since she gave you her number.”

I put my spoon back on my saucer with a clatter.

“You know," I told him. "I _really_ wonder about the way information circulates around this neighbourhood sometimes.”

Indignation aside, Edward was right, Dr Cullen _would_ have the details, and my own nosiness (…or let’s call it _concern,_ which is a more appropriate description) was flaring up.

As a result, when I later caught sight of Carine, I walked _towards_ her, rather than sprinting away like I would have the previous day.

I was cutting across the greenery in front of the children’s hospital, un-clipping the volunteer badge from the front of my shirt, when I saw the glint of gold and my heart leapt with unexpected nervousness.

I was _sure_ it was Carine. 

She was sitting cross-legged under a tree with a clipboard folded under her arm and a kindergarten-aged kid rolling around on a picnic mat with a scattered herd of little plastic pony toys.

“So, if Rainbowdash goes behind my back while I was telling Fluttershy where Applejack went,” Carine was saying, quite inexplicably to me. “And Rainbowdash can’t hear me talking, would Rainbowdash know where Applejack went when she comes back?”

“Rainbowdash could just ask Fluttershy!” the little girl burst, brandishing a particular toy with the savagery of triumph.

“So…your answer is that she can’t know what I said to Fluttershy if she isn’t there to hear it?” Carine confirmed.

“Well…yeah, _duh…” _sighed the kid.

Realising they were in the middle of something technical, I turned to leave, but the kid spied me out.

“Hey!” she squealed, poking a little finger in my direction. “She has the same bag as my mom!”

I cringed as my escape was thwarted.

“Esme! Hi,” Carine said, unexpectedly rising to her feet as I turned around.

“Hi, Carine,” I replied, noticing with a pang how tired she looked today.

Not surprising, really. She’d probably been up all night.

“Is this your daughter?” I asked politely, although this was clearly some kind of mental development assessment and I felt guilty I’d interrupted.

Besides, the kid was clearly hispanic and I couldn’t see any of Carine’s features or Nordic paleness in her.

“Nope,” Carine said.

“Oh,” I said.

Elaboration did not arrive.

“So…did you just find her?” I laughed.

Carine looked guilty.

“Um, Esme, I can’t really tell you…”

Triumphant, I whipped out my ID badge.

“Nice try, but I’m covered by hospital confidentiality,” I said, sounding way more smug than I intended.

“Alright,” Carine said, advancing on me.

…Actually she was getting _very_ close. Personal space, much?

Then I realised she didn’t want the girl to hear.

“She’s um…the young lady’s from the other night,” Carine said against my ear, very softly then raised the volume to include the kid too. “We’re just playing some games.”

“‘Cept you ask so much questions!” the kid groaned, mashing a blue horse against her head with frustration.

I sniggered. 

Poor girl. I know how she felt.

“She does, doesn’t she?” I laughed, catching Carine’s eye and seeing a playfulness I really didn’t expect there.

“You look like a Disney princess, by the way,” added the kid, thrusting a yellow pony in my direction, with an expression that told me I had just had the highest grade of praise bestowed upon me.

Carine darted down to pick up the horse’s hat which had fallen off and handed it politely back to the girl.

“Oh! Bless you, sweetie!” I said, heart melting. “Which one?”

“All of them,” she said carelessly.

“Well that is sweet of you,” I told her, and it really was.

Bless her little pigtails!

Carine beamed between us proudly.

“You should do parties,” the girl continued in a tone of voice she was obviously imitating from a grown-up which was really cute. “Dress up as princesses for kids. You’d make a _killing.”_

“Maybe I could,” I said to humour her, chuckling at her word-use.

“Actually you’re pretty enough to do adult parties, too,” she continued thoughtfully, cantering the most fiercely-pink pony down her leg. “You would make waaaaaay more money for that, but you’d probably have to take the dress off.”

Whoa. That was a little less cute. What the fuck?

I then remembered what Edward had told me about her mother, and I felt terrible for the growing-up that I guessed this little kid had already had to do.

“Well…right then…” Carine said with a nervous laugh, fingers inching towards her clipboard.

“I’d probably better get going…” I said, equally caught-off-guard.

“Yeah…” Carine replied with a small smile.

“See you soon. Good luck,” I laughed.

“Thanks,” Carine mouthed.

“Bye, honey,” I said, bending to give the girl a wave.

“Bye, princess Esme!” called the kid. “And m’name’s Bree by the way.”

“Bye, Bree,” I grinned, leaving her in Carine’s capable hands.

As the two of them returned to their ‘game’, and I looked back, my chest swelled with something that could have been emptiness, or happiness. Somehow I couldn’t tell.

And I could still feel Carine’s breath against my ear.


	6. She's not good at art. She's just not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while.
> 
> Sorry for the delay - you know how it goes ;)
> 
> Enjoy the chapter, anyhow!
> 
> Finally some...flutterings.

That evening I texted Carine. Yeah, by choice.

Why? 

Fuck only knows. Self-destructive impulses, maybe?

**Survive the kid? She seemed precocious, to say the least!**

The reply came straight back.

**Yup, very smart. The kind of kid that can make a complete fool out of anyone :)**

Oooh, a smiley face. What did that mean?

I didn’t have long to ponder before she’d sent another message.

**I think I need a drink! Want to join me?**

A drink? We were doing _drinks,_ now? Not long ago we weren’t even speaking.

Or rather…I wasn’t speaking to her.

She did kinda just save someone’s life.

Oh God! This should have been just a quick yes or no! She’ll definitely be wondering what’s taking so long!

What _is_ taking so long?

Agh, she’ll still be waiting.

Hell!

Shit!

Fuck!

Errrrrr…

Then, I remembered with a little relief that there was somewhere else I was supposed to be.

**Sorry, I have an art class tonight and I’ve bunked 2 weeks in a row so better go :/**

No reply.

Come on, Carine!

Maybe she’s just gone to the bathroom?

Or…

With a small sigh, I realised what I would have to do.

**Would you like to come too?** I typed.

Carine’s message popped up immediately.

**Absolutely! I’m no good, though**

I grinned to myself.

**Yes, but you go to an art class to get good, right?**

**You got me there! Where is it?**

It felt weird dragging Carine into the art studio, somewhere which was very much _my_ territory but, as I pulled up and saw her waiting outside the building (she comes _early_ to things. I should have known), I could feel the smile stretch across my face, try as I might to stop it.

“Esme!” she beamed and, again, my stomach did that weird thing.

I guess I’m still not over seeing her almost die.

“Carine!” I called back, apparently breathless from walking the few steps from my parking spot to the door.

Jesus, I am so unfit nowadays…

“Enter if you dare. I shall expect great things, Dr Cullen,” I continued with a laugh as she raised an eyebrow.

“Aye, aye,” she said wryly as she got the door for me.

I badgered my friend Renee, who runs the class, into setting up an easel for the doctor, who, despite being a master of the mind, was struggling to hold the brush the right way around.

“Wow, well…I see a little of the subject matter, I guess,” I said brightly and, I hope, encouragingly, after I had finished another lap around the room.

I unofficially kind of co-supervise the class. I was promoted for being able to ‘critique unobtrusively’. I don’t know if I feel complemented by that or not.

“It’s very…” I faltered as I failed to think of any unobtrusive criticism to give Carine’s…thingy.

It wasn’t the wine bottle she was supposed to be painting, that’s for damn sure.

“Not very good?” she smirked.

“Impressionistic…” I tried haltingly.

“Like Picasso?” she asked eagerly, sapphire eyes glittering, suddenly enough like an excited little kid to make my heart hurt.

“In…principle, yes,” I said, kind of cringing as I did so.

“Or I could do a Jackson Pollock!” she said, eyes twinkling in a way that made me _extremely_ nervous. “Hang on.”

She was about to get _way_ too into this, I could tell.

“Carine…” I laughed as she ripped the canvas from the easel and flung herself, along with it, onto the floor.

“Everything alright here, ladies?” Renee asked looking freaked out.

Nobody in the class tended to have fits of artistic passion. Certainly never to this extent.

“Fine,” I laughed. 

Carine, with a look of great focus, began splattering paint randomly, and rather unflatteringly, across her creation.

“She’s a practicing psychologist…” I added delicately, as an explanation.

“Ahhh, I see,” Renee responded knowingly.

Mystery solved.

“And…that looks good, I think!” the doctor declared, popping athletically back to her feet like a hopeful meerkat.

Oh _Carine…_

Next to my generally uptight social circle, the fact that the room was sneering and Carine didn’t seem to give a fuck, let alone two, made her a bit of a rockstar in my rather rudely-widened eyes.

Yeah, and fuck the other vapid, rich, artistic wannabes. I was having a great time just _watching_ the madness happen. 

“Does anyone have_ any _control over you?” I laughed. “For real, though?”

“Ultimately, the only person that can truly determine the actions of an individual is the individual themselves,” Carine quoted, helpfully.

I somehow got the feeling, despite her apparent earnestness, that she was being sly.

Well, I can do _sly _as well.

“Would you say, personally, that you have an acceptable level of control over yourself?” I said, dead-pan.

She nudged my arm with an eye roll.

“Alright! Let’s see yours, then…” she chuckled.

When she got to my canvas, I couldn’t help but feel pleased at how surprised she was by what she saw.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Esme, it’s _beautiful.”_

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to grin with satisfaction.

It was nice to be able to prove to Dr Cullen that I _was _able to do_ some _stuff well (and I _could_ sketch well, I’d give myself that). Usually when I was around her I was being stroppy, or needing help saving suicide attempters, or not being able to open doors properly.

“How do you do that?” she wondered, with the kind of scientific glint in her eye which made the question stubbornly non-rhetorical.

“Here, I can…”

I handed her a pen and then went to cover her hand with mine.

“Yeah?” I asked gently, seeking permission, after Carine hadn’t managed a word.

She nodded, looking surprised and more then a little apprehensive.

“Yeah…So…you just take it round…” I said, guiding her hand around in a smooth curve across the empty canvas. 

Her skin was soft and politely pliant under my bossy grip. She had very beautiful hands, actually. 

With a twinge of grim satisfaction, I added this trait to the list of irritatingly perfect characteristics of hers.

“…And then you make some strikes…this way…” I continued, doing my best to ignore the awkward warmth that two hands make together.

Moving her hand, I began shading.

“Eyes on the canvas, Carine!” I scolded, my austerity ruined by a smirk at the speed at which her gaze snapped, panicked but studious, back to where it should have been: on the canvas rather than me.

“Er…sorry,” she said.

Her hand squirmed in mine, (which is when I noticed that her nails were a very nice shape. (Fucking Carine!))

“And then you go the other way,” I carried on. “At the same angle…just like…that…”

Finished, I stepped back while letting her hand go. 

It dropped away from me like a particularly sluggish leaf in the fall.

The doctor was gaping at me in unmistakable awe l ike I’d just levitated the goddamn easel.

Despite myself, I found the expression undeniably cute on her adult-face.

“It’s just cross-hatching, Carine,” I laughed, a blush on my face.

I’m not good at compliments. Even silent ones.

As I was driving home, it also struck me how warm Carine’s hand had been. I guess I didn’t expect it - her extremely fair colouring made it look like she had frosted over sometimes.

But whatever she was, she certainly wasn’t ice.


	7. Rescue Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read.
> 
> I'm so sleepy today that I have nothing intelligent to say about this chapter, except that I don't think badly of any of the 'broken souls' in Carine's church, or religion in general, I'm just trying to write in-character (and I'm quite enjoying being a shit on this glorious, rainy Thursday morning).
> 
> Please nobody be offended by anything I've written!
> 
> (I hope it's come out okay...)

What I realised (and I have no idea how I never knew) is that Dr Cullen only lives a couple of streets away from me. 

After the realisation that she has an apartment, it so followed that she might have an _actual life_ and I knew absolutely noting about it. 

Which, for me, is absolutely crazy.

Was she married? Did she have kids? What did she do in her spare time?

(If Carine really _did_ ‘spare time’. I know she works an awful lot).

Now, since we live so close together, it’s natural I’d see her around, right? 

For sure I wasn’t _stalking_ her, that would be creepy, just sometimes I follow her to try and say ‘hi’, but she’s just too speedy. 

(Yeah, like, what the fuck? She must have the longest legs ever. She’s such a fast walker).

What I _do_ know, is that Carine goes to Church.

It’s not the one in our neighbourhood, it’s the creepy one about a twenty-five minute walk away which I think sometimes doubles up as a homeless shelter and a needle swap on Wednesday afternoons.

It’s the one where people go if they need God but nowhere else will take them, basically.

Did Carine have _addiction_ issues? Or, like, a dirty mafia past or something?

As she entered the building, I was intrigued by this weird but typically Carine-ish behaviour and…okay, maybe I _was_ following her a little bit. But what the fuck?

As far as I’d heard, there was about a sixty percent chance of getting assaulted in there. 

In fact, given Carine’s general infuriating attractiveness, I’d scoot that up to eighty-five.

_If she’s not out in ten minutes,_ I told myself, _I’m going in to drag out as many pieces of her as I can find._

After fifteen, I couldn’t stall any longer.

This was a rescue mission.

I steeled myself and opened the big door.

Inside it was pretty empty and through the gloom (well, not _gloom_, cheap but efficient lighting. It actually didn’t look too bad. This place really wasn’t living up to expectation) I could easily pick out the twinkle of Carine. 

It felt like my eyes zeroed in on her like a camera in a spy movie.

Oh! And she was totally fine! Throat non-slit! 

She was just sitting in one of the pews…laughing?

Oh fuck, no she’s _crying._

The impulse to run out the door was short lived.

Somehow through the fog of self-centredness, it hadn’t occurred to me that Carine was an _actual human _with problems and emotions, but watching her cry was like seeing a puppy get kicked in the face.

Not good, people.

I’d help her. 

Poor Carine. 

Slowly I approached, cursing my heals for making such a noise. 

A few people even turned to look.

_ I am not comfortable with this. _

“Dr…Cullen! Hi…” I whispered when I was close enough to whisper.

Sleepily she turned around, not jumping with fright like an normal person. 

_Jeez, she really is an alien._

Or she has, like, vampire hearing or something.

“Hello, Esme,” she said weakly, with a strange twisted smile on her lips.

Ironic, maybe? Kind of like she was expecting me.

Oh shit! Maybe she’d seen me trailing her…

…In which case she is_ definitely_ a vampire of some description.

Including all this creepy church shit, I have a serious case for it.

“Carine…are you okay?” I asked, handing her a tissue as I gingerly lowered myself down onto the seat next to her.

(For once I found myself hoping that that stain _was _someone’s period, not some fucking animal sacrifice. Sorry to be gross).

“Fine,” she replied stiffly.

_You don’t look too fine, lady._

She seemed to read my mind.

“I’m just struggling with a few things,” she said in a sigh. “Coming here helps me.”

We sat for a moment in stifling silence.

“Are you religious?” I asked, just to break it.

“I am,” she revealed with a resolute nod.

And _heeeeeere_ we fucking go. I should have guessed Carine was in the God-Squad.

“I grew up in a church community,” she continued. “Well, in a Church, actually. But I…er…don’t have much contact with them anymore.”

“Why did you leave?” I wondered, interested now.

“I was…incompatible,” she said with a nastiness that kind of shocked me. “For reasons both inside and outside of my control.”

She chuckled ruefully to, or perhaps _at_, herself.

“I mean, when I was six, I taught myself the entirety of Darwin’s theory of evolution whilst lying under my bed, which is where I hid the textbook like some kind of…”

She waved her arms (perfect hands, perfect nails. Fucking Carine!) around searching for the right phrase

“Obscene…_devil porn!” _she hissed, at last.

A couldn’t stop the laugh.

“Are you supposed to even say that in a church?” I giggled as I tried to whisper.

“Probably not,” she replied with a small, accidental smile.

As this point, a guy two rows behind us started muttering to himself. It was getting louder and louder and was starting to get to me a little.

“Do you want to grab coffee?” I asked the doctor, after shooting a fugitive look over my shoulder.

“Yes,” she twinkled at me. “I’d love that.”

We walked together to my regular coffee place and got a bit of a _look_ from Mike as he came to take our orders. 

Blessedly, he didn’t comment on the fact that Carine and I were sitting peacefully at the same table (hell, the same_ room_) after some of the things I’d told him about her.

I’ll really have to stop bitching about her since Carine was actually being really…nice. And not in an overbearing way, either.

Except she insisted on paying for my coffee. 

Of course I refused. Flatly.

But then she did that weird Jedi thing of hers and became inescapably _reasonable _and_ generous _and I forgot why I had an issue with it.

“So…are you married?” I asked her over the top of my sugar-saturated cappuccino, pleased Carine was looking a little better for the caffeine.

She drinks her coffee black like a grown up. 

Should’a known.

Typical.

“Yes, very happily,” she answered sagely.

“Aww, what’s his name?” I asked.

I was trying to picture Carine married to someone. I ended up torn between some nerdy guy with thick eighties-style glasses and Brad Pitt. Or maybe some rockstar type. Or a hippie? I really couldn’t call it.

She is a weasel to pair up, that’s for sure.

And, it turns out, I was wrong on all counts.

“HBO,” she told me brightly, with a dangerous glint in her eye.

“Er…what?” I said nervously.

I got a very frightening feeling this was going to be a _Carine-joke._

Carine-jokes are generally so off-the-wall or too intelligent for everyone around her to actually understand, which makes it so _un-funny_, everyone ends up in fits of hapless laughter.

I have seen this happen.

“The Game of Thrones finale screwed me_ real_ good,” she finished with a flourish, and looked at me expectantly.

Oh.

Like…?

Oh.

I’m not gonna laugh at that. I refuse. 

That’s not funny.

It’s not…

That really isn’t funny.

Yah…

So…I’m not really sure if it was my mouth or my _nose_ most of the coffee sprayed out of when I exploded with slightly hysterical laughter.

It went. Fucking. All. Over. Me.

“Sorry, I have caffeine issues…” I gasped, mortified, while Carine magically produced handfuls of tissue from somewhere to mop up the _mess._

“Sorry,” she said with a frown. “Here…do you need more…?”

I nodded dumbly and took another wad of tissue. I can’t believe this was happening to me!

In front of _her!_

_There is coffee. Dripping down. My fucking face. _

_And it came. _

_Out my nose…_

Shit.


	8. Someone Dropped the L-Bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all!
> 
> As always, I don't mean to accidentally offend anyone with this.
> 
> And, hey, enjoy!

“I’ve never…_agh_…seen it,” I coughed, desperately trying to recover some kind of poise. “G-Game of Thrones.”

_Kill me. Kill me. Kill me._

“You’ve never..?”marvelled Carine, attractively agog, apparently un-fazed by my social death. “We’ll have to watch it together! We can…”

She faltered, probably realising that she had just proposed we spend hours upon hours together.

“Or…I-I could lend you my collection,” she suggested quietly. “I have it on DVD.”

“On DVD?” I asked her, still breathless with embarrassment. “The whole thing?”

That is adorably geeky.

The only remains of coffee were not prepared to be removed from my clothing any time soon, so my frantic scrubbing stopped.

Everything felt very still.

_“Are_ you okay, Carine?” I asked, partly as a diversion from my own mortification.

(Yeah, asks the woman who just _snorted coffee all over herself in a public place,_ for fuck’s sake!)

“Yes,” she decided, handing me another, unneeded, paper napkin.

I gave her a look that has been accused of being scrutinising.

Try as I might, I couldn’t seen to figure this woman out.

All blonde, all jawline, all cheekbones and all mystery. 

And she was _sad._ How would God allow _Carine_ to be sad?

“Crying alone in a church doesn’t seem like very much _okay,”_ I told her, quietly so as not to be overheard. “If I may give you a dose of your own medicine for a second.”

Yeah, the creepy church of broken souls at that. 

I mean…_fuck…_

“I…I’m not…” Carine murmured, looking particularly Siberian and far-away all of a sudden, like the air she was breathing was frosty. “I’m not how I should be.”

“Oh?”

Not _how she should be?_ Fuck’s sake, Carine! What’s perfection got wrong with it?

However, I kept listening.

The kicked puppy feeling was back.

“I just…I’m wired up…not _wrong_,” Carine continued slowly. “But in a way that…”

She shook her head. Her curls danced around violently, mesmerisingly.

“It isn’t a big deal,” she sniffed, businesslike again. “I mean, it _really_ isn’t and it shouldn’t be but it’s just tricky. I mean I….don’t judge other people who also…I try not to judge people.”

I felt a little like I was losing her thread here.

“Just…something is happening to me that I’ve always dreaded,” she burst, with a passion that somehow suggested I should know what the hell she was talking about. “And…it’s more serious than I imagined it would be and I…”

She looked at me pleadingly.

_You understand, don’t you, Esme?_

_Err…nope!_

I tried to think of something understanding to say, not that she was giving me a lot to go on.

“Wow…that sounds…”

_Seriously fucking vague._

“…Sucky.”

“It is…” she sighed, in apparent relief. “And yet…it’s not. Perhaps it sucks because it’s not as bad as it should be?”

She made a twitchy, irritated movement and her gaze dropped away stormily.

“I don’t know,” she muttered hopelessly.

There was a beat of silence. I found it scarily…amusing.

_Fuck, Esme. Don’t you _ ** _dare_ ** _ peacock-laugh again._

“You don’t know?” I repeated, with what I’m sure must have been a mischievous smile stretching across my face. “Did you just say _‘I don’t know’?”_

Carine smiled too. It was just one of her little unconscious ones but I felt triumphant, like I’d just won a war or something.

“Can I get that in writing?” I carried on, like a giggly eighth-grader.

The little smile stretched. Hell, I’d won _two_ wars now.

“And can you sign underneath it?” 

I was getting in her personal space now, grabbing onto her arm like an annoying little sister. By instinct, I knew she wouldn’t take offence at my teasing.

“Can I frame it?”

Half-heartedly, Carine tried to detach me from herself, her laugh clear and bell-like.

“Can I give prints of it to Rose and Edward for Christmas?”

“If you’d like,” she choked, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m sure they’ll be very collectable in the future.”

I sat back again to admire my handiwork. 

Making Carine laugh is better than baiting her. No comparison. 

I’d have to make a note of that.

_I now have not one, but **two** insanely beautiful friends,_ I thought as Carine spent the last of her chuckles. _She’s like the sun…_

I don’t know what was happening to me. I was buzzed. Like a _double_ caffeine hit. 

I’d have to have a word with Mike about the strength of his coffee these days. Value for money is one thing, but sending customers into nervous hysteria in front of their much more attractive friends is quite another.

“So, what about you?” Carine asked at last, when we’d both calmed down a little.

With Carine’s question, I felt the electric-like buzz over my skin coil into a snarl of panic in my stomach. 

It was a knee-jerk thing. I hoard my personal information like it could strangle me if it got loose enough in my grip. Maybe it could.

See, I know things about people,_ they_ don't know things about _me!_

“What _about_ me?” I countered, a little too aggressively.

_Smooth, Esme, smooth._

“How’s…things?” Carine shrugged, meeting my gaze evenly.

I coughed and my throat sounded attention-grabbingly dry. It turned into an awkward _double_-cough.

“Good,” I managed. “I guess…yeah…”

She waited. She watched.

My mind filled with that glittering blue colour of her irises. It’s a bit like the ocean catching the sun on a summer’s day.

I would not fall for this Jedi bullshit again. 

I’m not about to spill my guts to Carine Cullen.

I’m not.

“I…I dunno,” I mumbled. “I’m having a little trouble with my parents.”

_Fucksake, Esme!_

“My mom…” I said with a sigh and a defeated flop of my hand on the table. “Well, you heard on the phone…”

Carine said nothing, creating a vacuum between us that sucked the words out of my mouth.

“It really tires me out,” I admitted. “It…doesn’t…really…”

“It doesn’t make things any easier, does it?” Carine said meaningfully.

I sucked in a gasp and felt something being pushed into my hand. Another tissue (and where is she finding them all?)

“Esme?”

With a pathetic whimper, I felt my eyes start to sting.

I shook my head violently like a kid.

“No,” I whispered in a tiny squeak.

I don’t know how, but Carine understood the impossible: my feelings.

And for that I was _beyond_ grateful.

“I just…my mind…” I garbled, teary and gross, trying in vain to separate the tissues from one another. “It’s, like, when things are good, they’re _amazing._ And when things are bad it’s…”

I felt Carine’s hand warm on my shoulder like a hug.

“It’s intolerable,” I whispered.

Never said that before. I should hang out with smart people more often.

“I can imagine,” Carine said.

_How can you imagine…all of this…_

But she could. It was crazy, but she could imagine what _he_ did, and what happened because of it.

Like lightning it occurred to me that she could be in the same situation right now, or had been.

I’d been told I was still too scared of Charles, even now he’s dead. He still has something of a hold over me.

However, I could think of no reason why I couldn’t track down Carine’s tormentor and personally tear his fucking bal-

“Growing up must have been tricky,” Carine offered, breaking me out of my murder-trance.

Jeez, I am having a _day_ here.

“Huh…” I started in a voice that wasn’t quite my own. “Well…”

_Yeah, Carine, it really was._

“Yeah…I was…well, also _I _was weird,” I admitted.

Carine laughed disbelievingly (perhaps politely so).

“Yeah,” I said more enthusiastically. “I am naturally neurotic. I think I also have sensory over-sensitivity or something. You probably know. Everyone thought I had ADHD, but apparently I’m just tuned to a high frequency all the time. It’s like I have to deal with the whole world all at once. All the time. Do you ever get that?"

She smiled and slightly inclined assent.

I beamed through my tears.

She’s so smart! It’s like a superpower! _And she gets things!_

I squared my shoulders and decided to commit to the interrogation.

I hadn’t realised how good it would feel to just _talk_ to someone who wasn’t Edward or Rose. Maybe it was the lack of interruption? I can’t remember the last time a conversation partner let me say more than two consecutive sentences.

“I was also a real Tom-boy,” I added for interest. “As a kid. Teenager. Whatever.”

“Really?” she smirked in a friendly way.

“Yup,” I confirmed with a self-depreciating nod. “Yeah, I loved climbing trees…running…I was really skinny, actually.”

Credit to her, Carine did not raise her eyebrows even a fraction, which is saying something. 

“Like you’d know that now,” I laughed, gesturing to my…well, to _me._ “With my baking addiction, and all.”

She actually looked happy to hear what I had to say, which is fortunate, since she’d bust some kind of dam inside me - one which had spent years holding back a giant monologue about my childhood, stopping it from boring the shit out of my dinner guests.

“You’ve just grown up,” Carine said with a shrug and a twinkle in her eye.

She was leaning on the table, lightly supporting her chin with her interlocked fingers and looking very blonde and pretty.

Her relaxed pose loosened my tongue even further.

“Yeah,” I chucked. “I used to wear dungarees. To _school! _My parents really didn’t like it….”

Now they were coming, the memories wouldn’t stop.

“…And there was this girl in high school, Lauren Mallory…”

I scowled.

_Fucking_ Lauren Mallory! I haven’t forgotten you, by the way…

“…She said it made me look like a _lesbian.”_

I looked to Carine for an eye-roll and a smirk at the behaviour of the ridiculous bitch who tormented my teen years, but she was looking strangely serious, and all of a sudden extremely intense.

“Are you?” she asked quickly.

I felt my whole body tense. 

Mood killed.

Shutters back up.

_And where the _ ** _fuck_ ** _ did that come from?_

“Am I…am I a _lesbian?”_ I repeated incredulously.

I felt that was unfair. 

It was like she’d stung me with a beamer after promising to throw underhand and the ball hit me in the face.

I was as angry as when I accidentally bump my head on the corner of the kitchen cupboard. 

Like, _murderously_ angry. 

And feeling the need to _destroy _what just caused me such annoying, petty pain.

“Are you seriously asking me that?” I breathed.

Who the fuck did she think she was, asking me something like…like _that?_

That was just _rude!_

On what basis is she asking this?

Of course I’m not! 

I’m not! 

Why _would_ I be?

That’s…

What a stupid _fucking_ question!

_Fucking Carine!_

“Is it surprising because you think it’s obvious you aren’t…” Dr Cullen recited, in a tone like this was a fucking hospital appointment. “Obvious you _are_ or…”

_Obviously_ Genius Psychologist finally managed to work out that she’d really, _really _pissed me off.

“Or…or that I should mind my…own…business…” she finished with a wince, looking rightly sheepish.

“The third one,” I said as icily as I could.

I threw a wad of cash on the table. Far too much, but nothing I couldn’t afford.

It would do Mike more good than me, assuming he even got the excess and the greedy bitch didn’t gobble it up like she’d just done with my feelings, my _trust._

“There!” I spat, realising that this whole afternoon had been a complete and utter fuck-up on my part. 

I am, without fail, more cagey with people than that so this sort of thing doesn’t happen to me.

I’d lost too many pieces of myself already to be feeding nibbles of emotion to…let’s be real here, a _stranger._

“Esme,” Dr Cullen breathed, horror on her face as she rose robotically to her feet, but she was too damn slow.

Too damn _fucking_ slow, Dr Cullen.

I was already leaving.

_Yes, get a load of the looney. This is what you came for, anyway, right?_

“Enjoy your drink now that it’s been paid for with my dead husband’s blood money!” I called over my shoulder, phone already in my hand.

I stalked away down the street, ignoring the stares I was getting through the window. 

I am _so_ done with getting stares today!

“Rose,” I laughed disbelievingly after she’d picked up the call and I was sure psycho wasn’t fucking _following_ me. “You will not _believe_ what Carine Cullen just said to me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sad for Carine right now. 
> 
> For both of them, actually.
> 
> I've upset myself.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! You made it!
> 
> Please keep reading!


End file.
